Friday, May 1, 2009

Latest news from Paris

As you may be aware of, on Wednesday the FIA handed down McLaren a suspended three race ban over what some pundits have called “Ly-gate,” in which indeed Lewis Hamilton and Dave Ryan both were caught red handed doing to the Australian GP race stewards. Or as “Press Dawg” has noted; “McLaren’s now on Double Secret Probation” for the following 12 months after Martin Whitmarsh told the WMSC that McLaren was indeed guilty of breaking five counts of the Sporting Regulations, yet the team’s knuckles have basically now been wrapped with a ruler and will be free to get on with defending Hamilton’s Championship...

FIA announces revised 2010 Budget Cap plansAnd as expected in the past few days, the WMSC also announced plans for a sweeping Budget Cap Formulae beginning next season, with the cap’s limit now being pushed up to $40m Euros ($59m USD) with a further number of line items being stricken from the previous $30M Euro iteration, most notably Driver’s salaries, which should be good news for USF1, Err USGPE, eh? (As this now paves the way to go after Princess ‘N Schrubb...)

Yet, I’m not impressed with the move to allow moveable front and rear wings, although perhaps this is the FIA’s attempt to give up upon policing the current front & rear wings that teams try to sneak past scrutineering, albeit Toyota was thrown to the back of the grid for said infringements... As I’m not sure what’s next? Sliding Skirts perhaps? As it seems that we’re on a slippery slope towards uncontained cornering speeds of which could potentially be detrimental to Driver’s safety in the future?

The FIA has also pushed forward the 2010 F1 Team Entry deadline to May 29th, with final team entries being announced in early June.